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Killers on Parade
The biggest difference between Predator and Predators was in the lack of
beefcake: The first movie was all about BIG men with BIG 'guns'
and BIG weapons. Except for Nikolai, Mombassa, and Cuchillo,
there was no 'biceptitude' element to these killers,
rather, the group was measured in lethality. (I was hoping for
even bigger men—you know you were too—throw
Kane and The Undertaker
in there!) Predators went in a different direction,
however, keeping true to the
variety of characters, but kicking it up a notch by having
them not be all military, and incorporating more differences in
dress, in race and nationality, in
types of weapons, and in methods of killing. A seemingly video-game-inspired choice, and admittedly, despite my love of beefcake,
the really interesting part. Which type of person with
which weapons, would prevail? Made me wonder if there would be a
payoff for the death row murderer being armed with only a shiv (and of
course there was).
Firepower*
This variety of men/methods/weapons kept it interesting, as opposed to
just great big men with the biggest guns possible. This new
group still seemed armed to the teeth, having been extracted, in
some cases, from combat fully loaded and carrying lots of
ammunition, which helped because when they faced their second
challenge (their first being getting together without killing
each other), the
Predator 'dogs'. The group shot the shit out of everything, like the
tree-chopping-firepower scene in the first movie. I think
too much of a big deal was made about the Predator dogs
pre-release. They looked incredible but all they could do was
run and bite (same as a regular dog, just way uglier). They had
horns too, lots of them, and claws, but they were no match for
weapons. Big credit to special effects for making them look
'real' (their skin/wounds were amazing). Their main purpose, it
seemed, was to use up ammunition. Something a little too easy as
a plot device, but when you're thrown into a jungle and don't
know yet that there's something bigger out there you might need
the bullets for, shooting the shit out of the smaller right-now
danger seems appropriate. Still, it was hard to be in the moment
and not be thinking of the Predators you knew were coming, and
that they would need all the bullets they could get for. (*More
about weapons at the end.)
Manpower
Once the group all got together, as the events play out, it became clear
that the writers kept true to the structure of the original movie, right down to
the role of the characters:
The Characters
There's a leader
(ROYCE is Dutch). The twist is he's not the biggest and
strongest, and he doesn't want to lead. Dutch was very much in
charge, trying to get his men out alive, and felt protective.
Royce is ready to use them as bait or sacrifice them at every
turn. This is what made the movie for me (it rang true), but
they didn't set it up well enough that he's an uncaring bastard
at the beginning, so a turnaround at the end was too predictable.
A comrade at odds with him (ISABELLE is Dillon): The twist
is his second in command (so to speak) is a girl. She also
serves as the Anna in the telling of the story of
"el diablo cazador de hombres" from the
first movie naming 1987 and Guatemala (I always thought it was
Nicaragua) as a case file (which was cool).
One of them has the third-eye/sixth-sense element (HANZO
is Billy): The twist is he's Asian. He makes the sacrifice last
stand, but I won't spoil how that ends.
The big dumb lovable blonde (NIKOLAI is Blain): The twist
is he's a family man, Mac 'n' Blain were kinda 'close' LOL.
"He was, uh . . . my friend."
The token black guy (even though there are 2 in both
movies, MOMBASSA is Mac): No twist. Like Mac, he's the first to
see something.
The sacrifice: Sadly, they killed off Danny
Trejo WAY early (CUCHILLO is Hawkins): The twist is a big mean guy
with 2 guns gets taken down first. I thought it was a waste to cast
him, but maybe they used him so it was more of a surprise that he's
the first to go. Cuchillo's being taken by the Predators happened without being
shown. I was thinking it would have been stronger if you thought
he really might still be alive. There was no setup for the
Predators' mimicry trick, and no real payoff later for Anna
discovering it. She definitely should have mentioned it to the
group. (I'm thinking they filmed an audio payoff then it got
cut. How many times have you seen outtakes that should have been
left in? I would say it's most often 80/20 that they should have
left something in. This movie is 1:47. I wish Hollywood didn't
follow the time rule so much, or that they would change the rule to
2:00-We want more!!)
The
whiner
who gets
wounded but doesn't want to be left behind (EDWIN is Poncho): (I
wanted to scream "I can make it, I can make
it!") The twist is, he's lethal! I saw that coming.
When there's a doctor and he never does any doctoring . . .
And an extra character just for fun who is like
Bill
Paxton from Aliens (STANS is Hicks "I'm
Hudson, he's Hicks", I mean Hudson). And what movie isn't
better with a little "Oh you want some of
this?!" As the biggest
Aliens fan EVER, I think they should
have used him more, but maybe that would have seemed too
obviously Aliens-ish. As it was, there was a scene that seemed
like a twist on the drone crash/aftermath scene in Aliens ("real pretty shit now").
The BERZERKER PREDATOR serves as The General. The twist is, he's in charge
of the Predators.
The Hostage
is CLASSIC PREDATOR, and the twist is that the Predators fight among
themselves, something that pays off for the humans. They could
have shown the Classic Predator competing with the Berserker and
why he ended up tied up, instead of Noland just explaining that
they don't get along. Maybe if we knew the Berzerker was the
inferior hunter of the two, we would have been crapping in our
pants more when Royce sets Classic Predator free. I would have
liked to see Classic Predator win (because he is older, because
he has more experience maybe). Setting up Berzerker as being
mean to Classic and tricking him somehow to get him tied up
would have made it awesome to see Classic kill him. As it went
down, however, it made Classic seem a little pathetic.
There are multiple Unknown Elements this time (because we already
know about the Predator): They are on ANOTHER PLANET, there are
MULTIPLE PREDATORS (except they
ruined that with previews), and there is a crazy survivor, NOLAND—who is a throwaway except
that he tells them about the Predators'
spaceship.
The Formula
Making the movie scary had to be a challenge, when you
already know about the Predator and don't have the big, scary,
"ugly motherfucker" reveal at the end
(although they were impressive as hell in that department, it
doesn't compare to the first when he takes off that helmet and
opens his mouth. This time we know what the hell they
are. Hunters! The other thing I thought was missing (besides
biceps), or was left out intentionally was the fact that the Predator
used the trees. These Predators seemed to get by with just running.
Nobody got hoisted away or picked off from the back of the line
(that they showed). That's the part that would have scared
me the most if I was in a jungle
with Predators (seems nobody ever looks up). This new group didn't know that. Finding the dead soldier after setting off his traps could have
been used to clue them in, but using the trees was not
mentioned. It could be argued that maybe only Classic Predator
used the trees. There
was also the Predator with a sword-like blade (Tracker
Predator?), the Predator with tusks (Falconer Predator?) who had a bird who flew over the area
like a surveillance drone so he could see from
the air where everyone was. Still, the humans do
manage to use the Predators infrared vision against them in the end.
The Music
As the movie progressed, each of the plot points that happened in the
first movie happens in the second in some similar form, but not
necessarily in the same order. The music was
a big part of letting you know which part it was. For example,
in Predator the part when Billy decides to take a stand on the fallen tree,
when that same
music begins to play in Predators, you know it's sacrifice-last-stand time. The music
wasn't exactly the same. It wasn't quite as military,
nearly as eerie, and not as pronounced or loud, but it was the bow on
the package. Where other music was used, I tended to tune it out. In the first one, the music seemed to inform every scene,
and the jungle sounds, drums, and plaintive tones keep my nerves
on edge. They did a really good job of updating the music making it a little cooler
sounding, and knowing when to use it, but I still would have
liked to hear more native drums.
 Twists and Turns
So with mostly the same characters and the same dangers, plus
plus, I
have been wondering how Predators could have been better, and keep
coming back to the preview. You really shouldn't watch a preview
of any movie you really want to enjoy. As they sometimes do with
great annoyance to the fans, they have something in the
preview that doesn't make it into the movie (we hate that), and
the preview is misleading. I am glad
that they didn't show the Berserker Predator in detail
beforehand, but they
should have kept it quiet about there being different types of Predators (and about the dogs). Had they shown
the one scene that reveals they are definitely not on earth, I'd
have been pissed because I would have expected more, but that was
the only shot. They really also shouldn't have given away that
it was not on earth either in promoting it. That could have been used to great
effect near the end, á la Planet of the Apes. I
wondered why they didn't see those planets anytime they looked
up, or when they crossed the flat, open rocky area. They
could have had
the place where they were dropped been shown to be like a huge
ravine that was covered over with growth and hard to get out of.
(I think the first thing they should have done was climb a tree
to see if they could pick which direction to go in, and discover
they were in a ravine. Have that be their first challenge—see if they can survive long enough to
make it out of that terrain, maybe have the Predators watching
from above. SHOW what the humans were up against, and show some
people in a previous drop die before Royce and the group drops
in so the audience knows what shit they've dropped into
but the Group don't.
Also, show the perspective of where the Predators camp was in
position to the ravine, and to where they fell into the water,
so we
would have had more invested in their efforts. Using traps
to make a last stand and then not showing the effort that went
into making them is the same mistake that was made in the
theatrical release version Aliens. We need to be rooting
for them more (as it was were were just watching them get picked
off). In the
Aliens version with the extra minutes added back in, the whole prep for setting up the automatic
guns and showing the stages of the aliens breaking through the
series of doors really MADE the last stand feel. This
makes us want the Group to make it! They should have had the last stand be after Noland I
think. To know where they have to go to (back to the camp—maybe
show it from the height of that mining ship/drill thing) and
then choose a spot to defend to get the Predators numbers down a
little. (I thought there would be at least 8 from the multiple
targets shot in the preview. In the movie there was only one,
and only one predator in that scene.).
The Predators are supposed
to be these awesome hunters, but if you didn't see the first one
(and since they didn't used the trees like in the first one),
all they really had besides the home-court advantage, size, strength,
dogs, and a bird, was a cloaking
device. As it was, for awesome hunters they were easily killed.
One of them was killed with 1 shot (what was
that driftwoody-weird looking thing? was it supposed to be a
Predator?). They got them with explosions several times, and the swordfight took
out another one. Not nearly enough 'fight' in them considering
this was their turf and they'd been doing this a while. I wondered
if they shouldn't have been shown to be awesome hunters. I got
no fear of them just from blood/guts/bones, traps, and cages.
Fear worked in the first one because the men were really big and
armed and if they were scared, what chance do you have? In this
one, the people seem average and without guns, they're 'killers'
but that doesn't do it for me. It
wasn't until I saw the 3 new Predator bad asses (Berzerker,
Tracker, Falconer) appear after
the big camp shootout that I got the deep-shit danger feeling. I needed that fear earlier. I needed to
know what great hunters the Predators were. The movie didn't give us that
(just the idea that they could avoid traps, some piles of bones, and
some strung-up dead blood-drippy carcasses, which could have been for
food). The humans never seemed outmatched. There was never that
"we're all gonna die" feeling the
first one gave with only 1 Predator.
 The movie was good. I saw it twice, and will probably go again. The ending was sooooo satisfyingly violent! I haven't
enjoyed a killing like that
since Jeepers Creepers 2. As escapism, it really
hit the mark. The whole look of it (characters, setting,
weapons, creatures) is fantastic! (After writing this I feel a little
ungrateful like Woody Allen's Annie Hall joke about life
with the two ladies at the Catskill mountain resort "Boy, the
food at this place is really terrible." "Yeah, I know; and such
small portions.") They made it good enough, but I
think they weren't shooting for GREAT. My second big criticism
is just that I wanted more!
Weapons
Found a nice catalog of Predator weapons at
Joker Designs' "Predator The Hunted"
which includes the "Plasma Caster" shoulder cannon.
Here is a weapons chart from
SyFy's dvice.com:
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action movie freak
